The Myth of Sparta — Were Ancient Greece’s Greatest Warriors Overrated?

“Even a cursory glance at the sources reveals the many, many times the Spartans failed to live up to the Lycurgan model.”

By Myke Cole

THE TERM “Spartan” is practically a watchword for military superiority — ubiquitous among moderns when trying to evoke warrior primacy. Gun dealers, mud-runs, and sports teams across the country all proudly bear the name “Spartan,” usually in concert with the stylized Corinthian helmet made famous by Frank Miller’s hit comic (and later Zack Snyder’s film) 300.

For most, “Spartan” conveys laconicism brevity, stoic endurance, prizing the polity over the individual, faithfulness unto death. We’re reminded of the words Herodotus puts into the mouth of the Spartan king Demaratus, trying to describe his countrymen to the Achaemenid king Xerxes I: “What their law bids them, that they do; and its bidding is always the same, that they must never flee from battle no matter the odds, but stand at their post and there conquer or die.”

There’s just one problem. It isn’t true.

This is not to bash the Spartans. The social model credited to Lycurgus, the mythical figure that gave Sparta her laws, was genuinely remarkable. Through the establishment of the agōgē, the brutal regimen that conscripted boys from age seven and trained them for a life at war, through the syssitia system of communal messing, through a culture that shunned “tremblers” who failed to stand in battle, Sparta absolutely did produce some of the best heavy infantry in the Greece – troops who saw Sparta to something like military hegemony from the mid 6^th through the early 4^th centuries BC.

But it is equally true that the Spartans were human beings. Even a cursory glance at the sources reveals the many, many times the Spartans failed to live up to the Lycurgan model – supposed wealth-haters who secretly hoarded gold and pocketed bribes; steadfast xenophobes who collaborated with Persia; religious zealots who willingly committed sacrilege; brave warriors who fled from battle, surrendered, and just plain lost again and again.

The examples stack up. The Spartans are perhaps most famous for their stand at Thermopylae in 480 BC, where 300 of their elite spartiatai purportedly held a narrow pass against a Persian force realistically numbered at around 120,000. The battle was already famous before 300 – a byword for standing firm in the face of hopeless odds. But what isn’t often told is that those 300 Spartans led a much larger force of 7,000 Greeks, and at least 300 helots. Worse, we focus entirely on the heroic stand and not on the futility of the fight – the sum effect was a mere three-day delay of the Persian forces who went on to burn Athens to the ground. The Spartan sacrifice wasn’t even that great compared to the other Greek city-states in the battle. The Spartans lost 298 of their 300 – maybe four per cent of the available spartiate muster. Conversely, the Thespians lost 700, which accounted for the entire generation of fighting males in that city-state. Yet nobody has made a movie about them.

Another example is Sparta’s late 6^th century BC attempt to subvert the Athenian political order. Claiming to be driven by an oracle, the Spartan Agiad king Cleomenes I invaded the city state to unseat the tyrant Hippias. But unable to counter the Hippias’ Thessalian cavalry, the Spartans were soundly defeated, even killing the expedition’s leader Anchimolus. Cleomenes returned with a larger force and finally forced entrance into the city, where a nascent democracy had been established. This would not do for Cleomenes, who tried to overthrow it and establish his friend Isagoras as a Spartan puppet ruler. But the mighty Spartan now found himself facing one of the first examples of people-power, as the Athenians rose in revolt, besieging him on the Acropolis. He was finally allowed to leave, albeit with his tail between his legs. Isagoras and his followers were imprisoned and condemned to die.

Cleomenes, humiliated, called on his allies and organized another invasion to make the Athenians pay. But on the eve of battle, his Corinthian allies took their troops and marched off, saying the invasion was unjust. Next, Cleomenes’ Eurypontid co-king Demaratus (who I quoted before) also quit the battlefield and the Spartan army broke apart. Athens would remain unconquered by the Spartans until their victory in the Peloponnesian War.

The 27-year conflict itself was marked with Spartan reverses. The city’s military conservatism and rigid thinking kept them from embracing combined arms (the integration of specialist light troops and cavalry) along with their vaunted heavy infantry, which cost them dearly. Their refusal to embrace naval power resulted in no fewer than *seven* major Athenian naval victories. The last of these, at Arginusae (406 BC), was so demoralizing that Sparta sued unsuccessfully for peace.

Sparta eventually won the war, but only after accepting substantial aid from that great enemy of Greece – Persia. Emperor Darius II provided the money and advice that finally allowed the Spartans to snatch the final victory from the jaws of defeat – stripping the Athenians of their mastery of the sea at the naval Battle of Aegospotami (405 BC). But the reputation-shattering moment of the Peloponnesian War Sparta’s defeat at Pylos and Sphacteria in 425 BC – where 120 of the elite spartiatai were cut off on an island and surrounded largely by light-armed missile troops. Giving the lie to Demaratus’ quote about conquering or dying, the Spartans opted to surrender, whining that the Athenians had only defeated them with “spindles” (their term for arrows), implying that had the enemy engaged in manly close-combat, Sparta would have won.

Sparta’s eventual triumph in the Peloponnesian War certainly made them the undisputed masters of Greece, but they could only cling to power for a mere year before Athenian exiles trounced them at the battles of Phyle and Munichia. The Spartans saved some face with a victory at the Battle of Piraeus in 403 BC, but they were so shaken by their losses that they restored Athenian democracy and forgave many of the Athenian exiles who had taken arms against them.

Far less famous than Thermopylae, but much more consequential, was the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, where an outnumbered Theban force crushed the Spartans and broke their power forever. Here again Sparta’s rigid conservatism hobbled them in the face of the innovative and forward-thinking Theban commander Epaminondas. The Thebans stacked their left with far more ranks than was customary, and refused their right wing, betting they could break Sparta’s elite troops (stationed on the Spartan right) before they could be reinforced. The gamble paid off — the Theban victory was total, killing the Spartan king Cleombrotus I. A Spartan relief force under the co-ruler Archidamus III heard of the slaughter of his fellow monarch and fled rather than take the field against the victorious Thebans. Conquer or die, indeed.

These are just a few of the many examples of Spartan defeats throughout the city-state’s history. None of this means that what the Spartans attempted to build was not extraordinary. It absolutely was, and the Spartans have rightly earned much of their reputation for valour and skill at arms. The Spartans were neither weaklings nor cowards. But they absolutely were humans, prone to the same vices and failures that plague all warfighters, no matter how elite, throughout history. The tendency toward hagiography, sent into high gear by 300’s 2006 theatrical release, clouds efforts to see the Spartan legacy clearly. As historians, we owe not just ourselves, but the Spartans the honour of reckoning honestly with their record.

About the Author: Myke Cole is the author of Legion versus Phalanx: The Epic Struggle for Infantry Supremacy in the Ancient World. He has published extensively in military history and security, including pieces in the journals of the American Association of Museums and the American Historical Association. In addition, Cole writes two popular military science fiction series, Shadow Ops (Ace) and Sacred Throne (Tor). In addition, he was one of the stars in CBS TV’s show Hunted. A former U.S. intelligence officer and mercenary, he currently works for the NYPD in cyber threat intelligence and lives in Brooklyn, NY. Visit him at www.MykeCole.com or follow him on Twitter at @MykeCole.